The resignation of Matteo Renzi following the defeat at the Constitutional Referendum of December 4th, 2016, creates the question as how Italy will ever fill the gap with other developed nations in the matter of digital services and ultra-broadband networks.

Whether you like him or not, there is no doubt that Matteo Renzi has been the first Italian premier showing a concrete interest vis-à-vis Internet and digital infrastructures, putting them at the core of the governmental policy. Before him, Italian governments have been merely dealing with television and broadcasting regulation, while the development of the digital sector was never a priority. The only serious concern of previous governments in the area of telecoms was the ownership of Telecom Italia, whether the company will become a subsidiary of whom. But no Italian premier ever took action or made pressure to force Telecom Italia to invest in high-speed networks. As a result, the traditional Italian telephony company has been relying, longer than other European incumbents, on the old-fashioned and depreciated copper telephony network rather than installing new fibers networks in massive way. No need for that.

With Matteo Renzi, the situation changed dramatically. It might be for a matter of age or personal experiences, the former mayor of Florence never liked very much Telecom Italia and its bills. Renzi launched an ambitious ultra-broadband plan to fill the gap in the vaste provincial and rural areas of Italy (the European Commission cleared the plan last June). Telecom Italia was offered to benefit of that plan and also to buy Metroweb, a company (controlled by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti) installing and offering ultra-broadband networks in big Italian cities. However, government and Telecom Italia did not find a common agreement on important conditions: while Renzi was aiming at strongly modernizing and re-shaping the Italian telecom market, Telecom Italia preferred to keep alive the copper network as much as possible and did not want to hear about structural separation of its network (a possible outcome when combining its network assets with Metroweb). Telecom Italia was probably thinking to be winning at the very end, thanks to the traditional instability and weakness of Italian governments, but it was wrong.

The stallo situation was “sparigliata” (broken) by the entry into the market of Enel, the Italian energy utility which launched a plan for ultra-broadband investments and offered to buy Metroweb. In the meanwhile, the Italian government granted a State-owned company, Infratel, the task to install ultra-broadband networks in rural areas. The emergence of new network operators changed dramatically the landscape: Telecom Italia ended up with “melina” and started to seriously invest in fibers.

Beside that, Renzi’s governments has been strongly intervening in the digital sector with various legislations in the matter of net neutrality, online platforms, sharing economy; they finally appointed as Digitalist Chief Diego Piacentini, a seconded senior executive of Amazon, to coordinate and make progress the digital agenda in Italy. The choice of Matteo Renzi’s about Diego Piacentini was challenged by someone because of potential conflicts of interests: nevertheless, no one could object the professional level of the Chief Digitalis and the need to coordinate the various Italian agencies competent for digital.

One would wonder whether the above was just a transitory acceleration and now Italy will fall back into traditional inertia. The main winner of the Constitutional Referendum, the 5-Stars Movement, has been traditionally relying on the Internet rather then other medias. However, despite some individual positions, it is not clear whether this political party has a concrete and coherent industrial policy for ultra-broadband and the digital sector in general. Irrespective whether they will become a force of government, the 5-Stars Movement and its leader, the comedian Beppe Grillo, should start to think about and say something to the people.